Access and benefit-sharing in the Convention on Biological Diversity
The aim of the so-called 2010 Biodiversity Target is to achieve, by 2010, a significant reduction of biodiversity loss at the global, regional, and national level. To reach this goal, efforts are to be undertaken to implement, more effectively and coherently, the three main objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the conservation and the sustainable use of biodiversity and fair and equitable access and benefit-sharing.
Project Team:
Carmen Richerzhagen
Time frame:
2002 - 2010
/
completed
Project description
The 2010 Target was also incorporated into the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). A further aim is to negotiate, by 2010, an international regime on fair and equitable benefit-sharing that would assign greater responsibility to the industrialised countries, possibly by requiring them to do more to regulate and control the use of genetic resources, e.g. in the pharmaceutical industry.
Two questions arise against this background:
1. What instruments are likely to prove suitable and effective when it comes to financing and implementing biodiversity protection, and in particular, is the concept of fair and equitable benefit-sharing one of them?
2. What elements should be part of an international regime that would be negotiated by 2010 with a view to ensuring fair and equitable access and benefit-sharing for developing countries?